4063675103?profile=originalCalifornia Department of Justice police agents walk towards a house near Ontario, California on March 5, 2013.

Photo Credit:Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg

California Department of Justice police agents walk towards a house near Ontario, California on Tuesday, March 5, 2013. The agents, working for the only state-level program to confiscate illegal firearms from owners, targeted people who’d once legally purchased firearms and lost the right after being convicted of violent crimes, committed to mental institutions or hit with restraining orders.

Wearing bulletproof vests and carrying 40-caliber Glock pistols, nine California Justice Department agents assembled outside a ranch-style house in a suburb east of Los Angeles. They were looking for a gun owner who’d recently spent two days in a mental hospital.

Special Agent Supervisor John Marsh who coordinates the operations around California, said: “We’re not contacting anybody who can legally own a gun. The only people we’re contacting are people who are prohibited from owning guns.”

Weapons and ammunition seized from the home of Lynette and David Philllips by agents with the California Department of Justice police in Upland, California.

Lynette Phillips, 48, and her husband, David Phillips, 51, sit in their home in Upland, California on March 5, 2013. Lynette, a nurse, had to surrender three guns after spending two days in a mental hospital in December.

Special Agent Supervisor John Marsh with the California Department of Justice drives out to seize illegal firearms near Ontario, California on March 5, 2013.

They knocked on the door and asked to come in. About 45 minutes later, they came away peacefully with three firearms.

California is the only state that tracks and disarms people with legally registered guns who have lost the right to own them, according to Attorney General Kamala Harris. Almost 20,000 gun owners in the state are prohibited from possessing firearms, including convicted felons, those under a domestic violence restraining order or deemed mentally unstable.

“What do we do about the guns that are already in the hands of persons who, by law, are considered too dangerous to possess them?” Harris said in a letter to Vice President Joe Biden after a Connecticut school shooting in December left 26 dead. She recommended that Biden, heading a White House review of gun policy, consider California as a national model.

As many as 200,000 people nationwide may no longer be qualified to own firearms, according to Garen Wintemute, director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California, Davis. Other states may lack confiscation programs because they don’t track purchases as closely as California, which requires most weapons sales go through a licensed dealer and be reported.

“Very, very few states have an archive of firearm owners like we have,” said Wintemute, who helped set up the program.

Funding Increase

Harris, a 48-year-old Democrat, has asked California lawmakers to more than double the number of agents from the current 33. They seized about 2,000 weapons last year. Agents also took 117,000 rounds of ammunition and 11,000 high-capacity magazines, according to state data.

“We’re not contacting anybody who can legally own a gun,” said John Marsh, a supervising agent who coordinates the sometimes-contentious seizures. “I got called the Antichrist the other day. Every conspiracy theory you’ve heard of, take that times 10.”

The no-gun list is compiled by cross-referencing files on almost 1 million handgun and assault-weapon owners with databases of new criminal records and involuntary mental-health commitments. About 15 to 20 names are added each day, according to the attorney general’s office.

Probable Cause

Merely being in a database of registered gun owners and having a “disqualifying event,” such as a felony conviction or restraining order, isn’t sufficient evidence for a search warrant, Marsh said March 5 during raids in San Bernardino County. So the agents often must talk their way into a residence to look for weapons, he said.

At a house in Fontana, agents were looking for a gun owner with a criminal history of a sex offense, pimping, according to the attorney general’s office. Marsh said that while the woman appeared to be home, they got no answer at the door. Without a warrant, the agents couldn’t enter and had to leave empty- handed.

They had better luck in nearby Upland, where they seized three guns from the home of Lynette Phillips, 48, who’d been hospitalized for mental illness, and her husband, David. One gun was registered to her, two to him.

“The prohibited person can’t have access to a firearm,” regardless of who the registered owner is, said Michelle Gregory, a spokeswoman for the attorney general’s office.

Involuntarily Held

In an interview as agents inventoried the guns, Lynette Phillips said that while she’d been held involuntarily in a mental hospital in December, the nurse who admitted her had exaggerated the magnitude of her condition.

Todd Smith, chief executive officer of Aurora Charter Oak Hospital in Covina, where documents provided by Phillips show she was treated, didn’t respond to telephone and e-mail requests for comment on the circumstances of the treatment.

Phillips said her husband used the guns for recreation. She didn’t blame the attorney general’s agents for taking the guns based on the information they had, she said.

“I do feel I have every right to purchase a gun,” Phillips said. “I’m not a threat. We’re law-abiding citizens.”

No one was arrested. Most seized weapons are destroyed, Gregory said.

“It’s not unusual to not arrest a mental-health person because every county in the state handles those particular cases differently,” Gregory said by e-mail. “Unless there’s an extenuating need to arrest them on the spot, we refer the case” to the local district attorney’s office, she said.

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  • Sandra,

      If a dr says this woman is ok  or the dr says i'm sorry mam,but we do not feel you are better now, DOESNT THE DR OR EVEN THE PATIENT HAVE THEIR OWN RIGHTS TOO ?.  Why is it that just because,you see,that is what is wrong,the govt takes any reason to use against you and in their favor,period. If this woman is not mentaly stable,then for sure take her guns away, not her husbands. He would have to show proof of gun safe and if then something did happen ,then maybe the husband could be held responsible,you just cant take private property away from someone coincidentaly,because they are married . This mental issue has been used before by commies,nazis,you name it. Common sense is what is and has been missing in the world today,brainwashing galore. America has had enough being bottle fed alot of crap and from what the evil in washington has been up to,hang on to whatever you have tight,cause their coming for it.

  • Sandra and All, Freedom is so precious that having a few nuts around is not nearly the problem as mass murders like this...

     

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  • ADMINISTRATOR TERRY,  If someone is or has shown mental disorders of whatever type,there are records. The govt deliberately stooped the institution of mentaly ill people back in the what? 70's,the govt!. They threw thousands back onto the streets for everyone else to deal with,now we are taking the brunt of another absolutely stupid idea. Make taking away anyones rights,the hardest thing the govt could ever possibly do and then we may get somewhere.

  • They are just LOOKING for any way to disarm the AMERICAN public no matter what our rogue GOVERNMENT wants to call it.LOCK & LOAD AMERICANS.We only have this problem because of the other people in our country who are not Americans at heart and have not been here long enought to know what it means too be an American with RIGHTS.

  • Sandra, Who cares about a nurse going to a hospital,REALLY,you are still going at this. THE GOVT HAS NO RIGHT TO TAKE AWAY ANYONES RIGHTS. Why is it so important for this woman who is a nurse,not a bum on the street,to have her husbands guns removed,why?. You are so quick to give the govt the benefit of the doubt but not to this couple,REALLY,THE GOVT ?. The govt releases illegals all day long,they kill,they steal,they rape,oh and that is the same guy in 3 mnths. ENOUGH !,if you think this or any govt should be able to tell you what to do  on everything all of the time,be my guest,but i put my faith alot higher than that.

  • So what is the answer everyone?  When we had the shootings in Colorado, Arizona and Sandy Hook there was a rallying cry by even our members, no gun control laws.  Instead get the guns out of the hands of the mentally ill.  What's the balance here?   How do we get guns out of the hands of people who honestly shouldn't have them while still retaining our rights of ownership?

  • This article is an example of the slippery slope the government will leverage to find as many new strategies/diagnoses to deprive citizens of their Second Amendment rights.  The fact that they confiscated the couples firearms based on knowledge the woman was involuntarily committed to a mental hospital, is very disturbing.  At face value, the confiscation may seem justified.  However, more facts should be required.  I know of a person that was involuntarily committed to a mental institution, and held there for almost a week, based on statements to the local law enforcement, by the scorned, vindictive lover of the person detained. 

  • The Liberal commies have turned our country on its head. And there is no way to stop it all but through blood-shed. They know this and that is why they are taking guns from us
  • Liberalism is a mental disease. None of them should be allowed weapons.

  • Conspiracy theories ?.  You are saying that it is ok for the govt to take someones guns because they spent 2 days in a hospitol and that is ok ?,really !. Look,i am so sick of being squeezed from every direction and i think most everyone is,we do not need any new laws,anyone having any of our constitutional rights infringed in any way at all. The whatever u want to call them,commies,libtards,etc,want to rule u,everything about you,eat,drink,go,think,. I dont know about you but NO MORE. Dont you see that they are causing anyone who cares for this country to think that their friends are their enemies and they pick away at our rights little by little. I am not attacking you sandra,i just remember not too far back,their was the same kind of discussion and you were taking the libtards side and were very agruementitive towards everyone. OUR RIGHTS ARE PRECIOUS AND SHOULD NEVER BE INFRINGED IN ANYWAY EVER. If you let your guard down,then their goal line gets that much closer to our demise.

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